1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to user interactive computer supported display technology and more particularly to such user interactive systems and methods which are user friendly and provide easy to use interactive user interfaces.
2. Description of the Related Art
The 1990's decade has been marked by a technological revolution driven by the convergence of the data processing industry with the consumer electronics industry. This advance has been even further accelerated by the extensive consumer and business involvement in the internet over the past few years. As a result of these changes, it seems as if virtually all aspects of human endeavor in the industrialized world requires the distribution of information through interactive computer display interfaces. Information for reporting, marketing, technology and educational purposes, which in the past was permitted days and even months for distribution, are now customarily required to be "on-line" in a matter of hours and even minutes. The electronic documents through which such information is distributed is made up of a variety of information types, e.g. text, graphics, photographs and even more complex image types. Because of the limited time factors involved in the creation, updating and reading of computer displayed documents, there is a need for a method and system for navigating through these documents which are fast and relatively effective.
For example, the conventional method of allowing a user to view very large sets of data in tree, table or list format is to display every item in the list. A user then has to scroll through the displayed items to find a particular item of interest. Obviously, it is easier to find a particular item in a list of items, if only one screen is needed to display the items than if more than one screen is used. Thus, a method and system were provided to allow a list of items to be compressed such that some of the items were displayed on one screen. However, if a user wanted to find a particular item that was not displayed, the user had to expand the list of items by mouse clicking on an expand button. This was tedious and time consuming. Consequently, a faster way of expanding a compressed list of items is needed.